Chapter 1

My wife's young protégé loved to brag about his "sixth sense" for bomb disposal.

He claimed he could feel the wires with his eyes closed.

But his intuition failed him, and he accidentally triggered the secondary detonation sequence.

I stepped in at the last second, using a high-risk cryogenic freezing technique to save the entire skyscraper.

Because of his lethal mistake, the kid, Mason, was stripped of his field duties and suspended.

My wife tried to argue for him, but I blocked her.

"If you speak up for him now, you won't just fail to save him. You'll be dragged down and suspended right alongside him!" I told her firmly.

Mason couldn't handle the pressure. He staged a "freak accident" and blew himself up.

He left a suicide note accusing my wife of choosing her own career over him when he needed her most.

My wife didn't say a word to me.

She just kept that letter locked away in her study like a holy relic.

Years later, my wife became a world-renowned bomb disposal expert.

During a terrorist attack, I was strapped with a timed explosive.

She arrived on the scene to save me, but right before my eyes, she purposefully recreated the exact same mistake Mason had made years ago.

She watched the timer tick down and smiled at me.

"See? He was just nervous back then. If I had encouraged him instead of letting you ruin him, he'd be a hero right now!"

The bomb went off, and I was blown to pieces.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the exact moment she was about to defend her protégé.

She has no idea that inside that building sits the core server containing the nation's highest classified data.

1

The moment I realized I had been reborn, I stopped dead in my tracks.

I was supposed to be rushing to the scene, but I turned around and went straight back to the dorms.

I pulled out my encrypted communicator and shut it down.

In my past life, Mason's mistake had sent him into a panic. He sent me dozens of messages begging me to save him.

I had just finished a 72-hour black ops mission and hadn't slept for three days.

Yet, I risked my life to clean up his mess.

I endured severe cryogenic burns just to stabilize the core server in that building.

Because of me, the military didn't court-martial Mason.

They only suspended him pending an investigation.

As long as he didn't screw up again, he could have eventually returned to his post.

But he was fragile. A few snide remarks from colleagues were enough to break him.

He blew himself up to play the victim.

In the end, my wife used my life to "prove" his innocence.

I pulled the blanket over my head and slept until dawn.

The next day, I finally turned my phone back on.

The screen was instantly flooded with hundreds of missed calls and blood-red emergency alerts.

I took my time washing up and putting on my uniform.

I arrived at the scene with unhurried steps.

Outside the police tape, the air was so thick with tension it felt like it would shatter.

Despair was written on everyone's faces.

Mason was slumped on the ground in a pathetic heap, shaking like a leaf.

The colleagues surrounding him looked like they wanted to skin him alive.

"This is on you, Mason! You and your stupid 'blindfolded intuition' crap!"

"Now look what happened! The secondary detonator is live! We're all dead!"

"Just wait! Director Winston is going to have us all court-martialed for this!"

Mason's eyes scanned the crowd frantically. When he saw me, a spark of hope lit up his face.

But a second later, that hope turned into deep, ugly resentment.

He pointed a shaking finger at me and screamed with everything he had.

"It's him! It's Silas! I called him all night! He could have saved us!"

"He turned off his phone on purpose! He wanted us to die!"

Suddenly, every eye in the crowd turned toward me like a sharpened blade.

Mason saw his chance. He stumbled toward me, thrusting his phone in my face to show the call logs.

His eyes were bloodshot and his voice was shrill.

"Silas! You know better than anyone what's inside that building!"

"National security is on the line! Why did you go dark? What was your real motive?"

The area went silent.

Everyone was waiting for my explanation.

I looked at his disgusting face, and the rage from my past life boiled over.

I raised my hand.

SLAP!

The sound of my hand hitting his face was sharp and loud.

Mason was stunned. He clutched his cheek, looking at me in total disbelief.

I shook out my stinging wrist and spoke with a voice like ice.

"Are you out of your mind?"